Hi everyone and many, many apologies for my prolonged absence. My only excuse is that I have been in the pink, or at least my computer has, everything has had a pink background with wavy lines, making it very difficult to use and as I have said before have yet to work out how to post my blog from my phone. But normal use seems to have been resumed for the time being anyhow, so here I am back again.
I have been out working again last week, followed by a quiet weekend, relaxing and catching up,and of course putting up the Christmas tree on Sunday and frantically gathering together advent bits and pieces to send to my granddaughter and catching up with the family wanderers, son and partner back from Malta and brother and sister in law back from Africa, a grand time had by all accounts on both fronts whilst the rest of us languish at home in what can only be described as a grey UK at the moment, well a grey Cardiff anyway. We had a power cut yesterday for about an hour, which heralded a cacophony of sound as all the adjacent burglar alarms went off accompanied by neighbours running into the street to see if anyone else's power had failed! I think the deafening noise of a multitude of alarms was the clue there, naturally there were some that could only be reset by the alarm company as and when they were available to do so. As promised photo's of the Advent calendar and Christmas stocking for my me Granddaughter, who should have received them by now. and to finish an advent poem by John Betjeman, our long departed poet laureate.
Thank you as always for joining me, I'll be here tomorrow, computer willing, have a wonderful day, wherever in the world you are.
Siwzy
Siwzy
Advent poem by John Betjeman
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.
The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.
Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.
And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.
And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?
And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
